"I ask her who the hell she is, telling me that. She says the Sanderses wanted her to tell me because they didn't want to hurt my feelings. So I finally just fucking leave. Mom may still be there for all I know."

"She's not," I said.

Lucy got up and stabbed a log with the poker. Sparks swarmed as if in protest.

"She's gone too far. This time she's done it," my niece said.

"Let's don't talk about her. I want to talk about you. Tell me what happened in Miami:"

She sat on the rug, leaning against the couch, staring into the fire. I got up and went to the bar and poured her a Booker's bourbon.

"Aunt Kay, I've got to see her."

I handed Lucy the drink and sat back down. I massaged her shoulders and she began to loosen up, her voice getting drowsy.

"She's in there and doesn't know I'm waiting for her. Maybe she thinks I can't be bothered."

"Why in the world would she think that, Lucy?"

She didn't answer me, but seemed drawn into smoke and flames. She sipped her drink.

"When we were driving there in my hot little V -twelveBenz," she said in a distant voice, "Jo had this bad feeling and she told me she did. I said it was normal to have a bad feeling when you're about to do a takedown. I even kidded her about it."

She paused, just staring at flames as if she were seeing something else.

"We get to the door of the apartment that these OneSixty-Fiver assholes are using as their clubhouse;' she resumed, "and Jo goes first. There're six of them in there instead of three. Right away we know we're had and I know what they're going to do. One of them grabs Jo and sticks a gun to her head to make her tell them where the Fisher Island place is we'd set up for the hit."

She took a deep breath and was silent, as if she couldn't go on. She sipped the bourbon.

"God, what is this stuff? The vapors alone are knocking me out."

"A hundred and twenty proof. Usually I'm not a pusher, but it wouldn't be such a bad thing for you to be knocked out right now. Stay here with me for a while;" I said.

"ATF and DEA did everything right," she told me.

"These things happen, Lucy."

"I had to think so fast. The only thing I knew to do was act like I didn't care if they blew her brains out or not. Here they are holding a gun to her head and I start acting pissed off at her, which wasn't at all what they were expecting."

She took another swallow of bourbon. It was hitting her hard.

"I walked up to this Moroccan asshole with the gun and get right in his face and tell him to go ahead and waste her, that she's a stupid bitch and I'm sick of her always getting in my way. But if he does her now, all he's going to do is fuck himself and everybody else."

She stared into the fire, eyes wide and unblinking, as if watching it again in her mind.

"I say, You think I didn't expect you would use us and then do this? You think I'm stupid? Well, guess what? I forgot to tell you Mr. Tortora is expecting our company-and I look at my watch-in exactly one hour and sixteen minutes. I thought it would be nice to entertain him before you motherfuckers showed up and blew his guts out and took all his guns and money and fucking cocaine. What happens if we don't show up? You think he won't get nervous?"

I couldn't take my eyes off Lucy. Images flew at me from all directions. I imagined her playing out this dangerous act, and I saw her in battle dress when she was at fire scenes and flying a helicopter and programming computers. I envisioned her as the irritating, irrepressible child I had virtually raised.. Marino was right. Lucy thought she had so much to prove. Her first impulse had always been to fight.

"I didn't think they really believed me," she said. "So I turn to Jo. I'll never forget the look in her eyes, the pistol barrel right against her temple. Her eyes." She paused. "They're so calm as she looks in mine because…"

Her voice shook.

"Because she wants me to know she loves me…" Lucy chokes on sobs. "She loves me! She wants me to know because she believes..:" Her voice went up and stopped. "She believes we're going to die. And that's when I start yelling at her. I call her a stupid fucking bitch and slap her face so hard my hand goes numb.

"And she just looks at me as if I'm all there is, blood trickling out of her nose and the sides of her mouth, a red river down her face, dripping off her chin. She didn't even cry. She's out of the story, lost her role, her training; everything she damn well knows what to do. I grab her. I shove her hard to the ground and get on top of her, swearing and slapping and yelling."

She wiped her eyes and stared straight ahead.

"And what's so awful, Aunt Kay, is part of it's real. I'm so angry with her for quitting on me, for just giving up. She was going to just give up and die, goddamn it!"

"Like Benton did;" I quietly said.

Lucy wiped her face on her shirt. She didn't seem to hear what I'd said.

"I'm so fucking tired of people giving up and leaving me;" she said in a shattered voice. "When I need them and they fucking give up!"

"Benton didn't give up, Lucy."

"I just keep swearing at Jo, screaming and hitting her and telling her I'm going to kill her as I straddle her, shaking her by her hair. It wakes her up, maybe even pisses her off, too, and she starts fighting back. Calls me a Cuban cunt and spits blood in my face, punches me, and by this time the guys are laughing and whistling and grabbing their crotches..: '

She took another long breath and shut her eyes, barely able to sit up. She leaned against my legs, firelight playing on her strong, beautiful face.

"She starts really struggling. My knees are so tight against her sides I'm surprised I didn't break her ribs, and while we're going at each other like that, I tear open her shirt, and this really gets the guys going and they don't see me grab my gun out of my ankle holster. I start firing. I just fire. Fire. Fire. Fire. Fire..:' Her voice trailed off.

I bent over and put my arms around her.

"You know? I'm wearing those wide-legged street jeans to hide my Sig. They say I fired eleven rounds. I don't even remember dropping the empty magazine, putting in a full one. Racking it back. Agents are everywhere and somehow I'm dragging Jo out the door. And she's bleeding heavily from her head."

Lucy's lower lip trembled as she tried to go on, her voice far away. She wasn't here. She was there, living it again.

"Fire. Fire. Fire. Her blood on my hands."

Her voice rose to God.

"I hit her and hit her. I can still feel the sting of her cheek against the palm of my hand."

She looked at her hand as if it should be put to death.

"I felt it. How soft her skin was. And she bled. I made her bleed. The skin I had touched and loved. I drew blood from it. Then the guns, the guns, the guns, and smoke and ringing in my ears and it's a blaze when it happens like that. It's over and never started. I knew she was dead."

She bowed her head and wept quietly, and I stroked her hair.

"You saved her life. And you saved yours;" I finally said. "Jo knows what you did and why you did it, Lucy. She should love you all the more."

"I'm in trouble this time, Aunt Kay," she said.

"You're a hero. That's what you are."

"No. You don't understand. It doesn't matter if it was a good shooting. It doesn't matter ifATF gives me a medal:"

She sat up and got to her feet. She stared down at me with defeat in her eyes and another emotion I didn't recognize. Maybe it was grief. She'd never shown grief when Benton was murdered. All I'd ever seen was rage.

"The bullet they took out of her leg? It's a Hornady Custom Jacketed hollowpoint. Ninety grains. What I had in my gun."

I didn't know what to say.

"I'm the one who shot her, Aunt Kay."

"Even if you did.:."